Google Earth recently updated their aerial images of my area, and now I find myself spending (wasting) way too much time panning and zooming around. I no longer have to actually be there to explore an area. The new color photos are much better than the USGS black and white photos that used to be the best for this area. Actually, the stuff they had in Google Earth before last week was absolutely worthless–it was in color, but the resolution was so poor that you could barely make out entire canyons, let alone major roads. Now you can see foot trails that weren’t visible in the 10-year-old USGS imagery.
Just today, I discovered some interesting features on Flickr. I’ve had an account there for a long time, but never uploaded any photos because I could just as easily store them on this site. Then I realized that you can specify exactly where each of your photos was taken, and they can be displayed on a map. From there, it’s really easy to view other peoples’ photos that were taken at or near the same locations. There was one group specifically for photos taken along Skyline Drive and Huntington-Eccles Scenic Byway, and since I had a lot of photos for that area, I joined and uploaded a bunch. I’m sure there are a lot of groups there that I would fit right in with, so I’ll probably be posting more photos there in the future.